


I cannot sleep warm

by Beleriandings



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Halloween, Horror, M/M, Plot is based on a Doctor Who episode, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: “And I love you too. Now... time to wake up.”
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 51
Kudos: 72
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: Halloween Fest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will have two chapters, of which this is the first. The plot of it is based on an episode of Doctor Who, though I won't tell you which one here because... spoilers!

_It had got dark as Jack walked, the cloudy sky between the black-outlined branches turning from grey to a flat blue as the light faded. The forest had also grown denser as he neared the place; well, he supposed time would do that. He had to turn on his torch before he reached the right place, sweeping its pale beam over the surrounding thicket. Here and there, there was a rustle or a small sound as it alarmed some nocturnal creature, sending it fleeing into the undergrowth. After a minute or so, he swept the beam across the branches of a tree and was met with a rustle of feathers and a dry cawing cry as he startled some birds out of their sleep, protesting as they fluttered away to perch on one of the weathered stones protruding up from the forest loam all around._

_Jack kept walking; he knew the place he was looking for, and he wasn’t there yet._

* * *

Jack sat up in bed with a gasp, blinking away the last traces of sleep; he’d been dreaming, his heart still racing with it. Not that he could remember what he’d been dreaming about.

His head hurt. He frowned, massaging his temple and trying to remember what he’d been dreaming about, but the details were already gone, the sense of it fading fast as he realised where he was.

He was in a big double bed, the duvet pulled up around his shoulders keeping him pleasantly warm. Across the room there was a fire crackling brightly in an old-fashioned hearth, scenting the room. His own familiar room, of course.

Or rather, his and Ianto’s.

That was another thing; Jack looked over to the other side of the bed and saw that he was indeed on his own. Where was Ianto, then? That was what spurred him to get up, to pad out of the room in his pyjamas – or rather, in a pair of Ianto’s soft flannel pyjama trousers and one of his older tshirts – and down to the hallway. Though the floor was carpeted on this level, it was still cold and rather drafty in the old stone-built corridors of Torchwood House, especially in the autumn. Jack paused for a moment, gaze caught on something at the window; the pane was steamed up with condensation, and someone had written in the steam with a finger. It was his name, _**JACK**_ written out in bold capitals.

 _Must have been Ianto,_ he thought, laying his hand against the cold glass beside the letters. He smiled a little bemusedly, thinking to ask Ianto about it when he found him. Maybe there would be a little teasing involved; _trying that hard to get my attention, huh?_

Jack took a moment to look past the words and out the window. Through the uneven glazing, he could see down into the courtyard, empty but for a few ravens perched along the low stone wall by the gateway, a few more on the old, knarled yew tree in the middle of the courtyard. The sky was leaden grey, a wind beginning to pick up a few leaves that had drifted in, making them dance in a little eddy. There was a storm about to blow in, Jack found himself thinking, without knowing exactly where the idea had come from. One of the ravens took flight, crying out with a dry caw as it flew up to perch on one of the window-sills on the far side.

Jack frowned, as something tugged in his memory, very very gently. But a moment later it was gone.

And so, ignoring the slight headache starting at his temple, he turned away from the window and continued down the stairs to the kitchen.

* * *

_When Jack had reached the right place the light was almost gone entirely, the sky dimmed to deep and unbroken navy, stars shrouded by a thick layer of cloud._

_There was a slight clearing here, as it happened. Jack stepped into it and knelt down in front of what he sought, setting down his torch on the damp forest floor and swinging the heavy rucksack he was carrying off one shoulder._

_Briefly, he let his eyes wander to the ancient stone in front of him, mostly submerged beneath the earth, its mossy roughness caught in the edge of the torch beam._

_Well, he thought. Time to begin._

* * *

“Daddy, daddy! It’s Halloween!”

“Wanna scary story!”

Jack barely had time to round the bottom of the stairs as two small children came hurtling around the corner into his legs, sock-clad feet skidding on the hallway tiles. He laughed, making a soft _oof_ sound as his daughter attached to him, limpet-like, around the waist, his son tugging impatiently at his sleeve. Of course; Halloween. Since Torchwood House was so isolated, there weren’t any other people for miles and miles, their family come up with Halloween traditions of their own. Which admittedly he and Ianto had mostly made up as they went along, but the twins seemed to enjoy it all the same. Usually they’d sit in the library with the lights turned down low, and Ianto would make hot chocolate loaded with cream and marshmallows for the children and coffee with a seasonally-appropriate dash of whisky for the two of them. Then they’d tell scary stories with the lights down low, until the twins dropped off to sleep between them on the sofa.

“Daddy, tell the one about the scary alien bugs?”

“No, no, the weevil chase one!”

Jack laughed. “I can tell more than one. Betcha can’t stay awake as long as I can tell stories for!”

“Bet I can!”

“Yeah! I can stay up aaaaall night!”

Jack feigned a gasp. “But it’s Halloween! You can’t stay up all night on Halloween, or the ghosts’ll get you!”

“We’re not scared of ghosts!”

“Oh, really?” said Jack, “not even ones that go… _blargh!_ ” he jumped for them, making a grotesque face that make them both shriek, and dissolved into giggling as he made to tickle them, then chase them around the room to finally collapse in a heap on the rug. He ran a fond hand through his daughter’s hair, as his son got to his feet again and tried to pull Jack up again by the hand.

“Should you really be encouraging them to stay up all night?”

Jack turned at the sound of the voice from the door behind him, giving Ianto a big smile as he came out of the kitchen. “It’s Halloween tonight” he said, as Ianto came to join them. “I reckon they can have a bit of extra time, huh?”

“Yeah!”

“Mm-hmm!”

Ianto gave a fond sigh. “Outvoted again” he said. And then, to the children, “breakfast’s in the kitchen.”

“Yay!”

“Race you there!”

As the two of them ran off – Jack wincing slightly as they nearly tripped over each other in their haste, Ianto looked him up and down. “Were you asleep all this time?”

“Yeah. ...Must have been, yeah.”

Ianto’s brow furrowed. “Jack, it’s past eleven AM. You never normally...” he tailed off, changing tack. “Are you okay?”

Jack smiled. “Fine.” he smirked a bit, hands going to Ianto’s waist. “But, mmm, I missed you.”

Ianto made a little tutting sound, though it sounded a little half-hearted. “I’m right here” he said, batting Jack’s hands off him as they ran along the bottom hem of his shirt. “If you’re going to still be asleep when I wake up, you’re going to have to wait until tonight” he said, though there was a regretful look in his eye. They both winced, as they heard a crash followed by a happy-sounding shriek and a lot more giggles coming from down the corridor towards the kitchen.

Jack grabbed his hand, pulling him after their children. “Come on” he said. “Breakfast first.”

“And damage-limitation” said Ianto with a sigh, following close behind.

* * *

_Jack opened the rucksack with utmost care, taking out the precious cargo and unwrapping its layers of padding on the forest floor. The cylindrical glass tank, about two feet tall and half as wide, sat incongruously on the forest floor loam._

_Jack dug a shallow divot to stand it up in in the loose topsoil, rich with decaying leaves. This place hadn’t always been a forest. He remembered it as it used to be, very well indeed. That hadn’t even been that long ago, had it? A few hundred years since it had taken over, almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. It still had a lot of growing to do, before it was truly ancient._

* * *

It was Halloween night and there was a storm coming, rolling in across the surrounding hills.

In the library his daughter hefted a book off the shelf, plopping the heavy hardback volume onto his lap. “This one!”

“What’s that one?” He didn’t recognise this book as one of either of the children’s usual favourites; it was a battered old tome that reminded Jack of a Victorian-style almanac, except with a plain binding, nothing marked on the spine. He opened up the cover. The title page simply said, in ornate old-style script:

_**DREAMING!!!** _

Jack frowned. “This isn’t a story book” he said, closing the cover abruptly.

She peered up at him with big, round blue eyes. “It is” she insisted, pushing the book at him. “Pleeeease read it?”

He opened the cover again, just a touch. Now it read:

_**JACK!!!** _

Cautiously, he flipped to the next page.

_**DYING!!!** _

He snapped the book closed, peering at the cover; he was certain it had been blank before, but now the spine read, in gold letters beautifully embossed against the deep blue linen,

_**CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS** _

_**YOU ARE DYING** _

A chill went through him as his son came up on his other side, leaning against his side. “Read that one, Daddy?” he begged. Jack looked into his face, ruffling his hair. “Not tonight” he said firmly. He wanted to get up, to go find Ianto and seek reassurance, ask him about the book; Ianto knew everything about this library, after all. But he was also sufficiently disturbed that he didn’t want to leave the children on their own. Not that he knew what he thought would happen – and why should anything happen? They were at home, and their family was safe now, far from Torchwood – but still.

As he was thinking this though, the library door opened, and in walked Ianto carrying a tray of steaming mugs. “How’re the ghost stories going?” asked Ianto, with a slight smile. “I hope I didn’t miss anything?”

As soon as he came in the twins both scrambled off Jack and off the sofa, running towards him. “Chocolate!”

“Careful, it’s hot” said Ianto, setting the tray down on a side-table. “And you don’t get to drink it until you sit down, or you might burn yourself.”

“Aww!”

“I won’t drop it!”

Jack came over, leaving the book behind on the sofa cushions, the unease of a moment ago all but forgotten. “Listen to your dad.”

Despite their protests, both twins sat down on the sofa, only wriggling and fidgeting a little. Jack brought over the thick knitted blanket and tucked it around them despite the warmth of the fire, as Ianto passed out the hot drinks; it was going to be a cold night tonight.

“Did you give me the white marshmallows?” piped up their son, peering at the tray and at his sister’s hot chocolate with intense suspicion. “I don't like the white ones, I like the pink ones. She’s got white ones too.”

“I like both” she said, rather imperiously, emphasising her point by shoving several marshmallows in her mouth at once.

Ianto sighed. “I still don’t understand the difference, they taste exactly the–” he broke off, at their son’s affronted little pout. “Yes, look. You’ve just got the pink ones.”

He grinned toothily, as he took the mug from Ianto.

“What do we say?” said Jack.

“Thank you!” chorused both twins; quite a feat when his daughter’s mouth was still mostly-full of half-melted marshmallow. They both already had whipped cream on the tips of their upturned noses too – they both had Ianto’s nose – which was adorable enough that Jack didn’t fuss too much about it. They’d probably get even stickier by the time the hot chocolate was done anyway, and there were still Halloween sweets in store for later.

Ianto smiled as he passed Jack his coffee, hands brushing on the hot china mug. He smiled as he took a sip and felt a rush of familiar warmth, the flavour of the coffee and the glowing heat from the hint of liquor spreading through his chest. Later, he knew, he’d kiss Ianto and he’d taste like coffee and whisky and his hair would smell just a little like woodsmoke from the fire burning behind the grate.

But for now, he thought, as Ianto went to sit on the other side of the sofa from Jack with their children in between them, they would tell stories. There was a roll of thunder outside; Jack could hear the storm beginning, and as if on cue there was a flash of lightning, the rain coming down in sheets. But in here there was a fire burning in the hearth, and they had hot drinks and were cuddled up on the sofa together. Ianto and both twins were quiet, waiting for Jack to start his story.

“Are you going to read from that book?” said Ianto, eyes going to the volume Jack had abandoned a moment before.

Jack turned, pushing it away along the table. “No” he said, decisively. “I don’t need to read from a book.” He grinned at the twins. “I’ve got plenty of ghost stories. And all of them are _true_...”

The children giggled in excitement, and Jack felt himself smile too, as he began.

* * *

_He settled the tank in place, then looked back to the stone before him, casting his light over the mossy surface, corroded by pollution and weather and simply time. He could still see the familiar letters inscribed there._

_He paused to run a hand over them for just a moment, letting their shape and everything they meant permeate his mind, his heart. Not that he needed to, but it would be best for what was to come. He was trying to achieve something specific here, after all. He kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed them to the stone, then turned back to the tank, settling it securely in the depression in the soil._

_Then, he took off the lid._

* * *

Many hours later, long after the ghost stories had been told and the children had dropped off to sleep on the sofa as the fire burned low, after they’d carried them to bed and tucked them in, the storm was still raging outside the windows, rattling and whistling against the house’s ancient roof.

Not that Jack was paying it much attention at the present moment.

Jack lay on his back, hands clasped on the bars of the bed’s headboard, legs firmly locked around Ianto’s waist and staring up at his face in the dim light as Ianto fucked him hard into the mattress. Jack wanted to close his eyes, to tip his head back and expose his throat to Ianto’s mouth and just _feel_. But for some reason he could only keep his eyes open, and stare and stare; some part of him was trying to record this, to commit every bit of it to memory. Jack moaned as Ianto increased his pace, chest heaving with his laboured breathing against Jack’s before leaning down to drop kisses on his chest, his shoulders.

Good though it felt, Jack made a noise of protest; tonight, he only wanted to see Ianto’s face. Ianto raised his head at the noise, seemingly understanding exactly what Jack wanted – and he always did, he always had – and brought his face up so it was inches from Jack, looking down into his eyes. He held the eye contact for a moment, then leaned down a fraction and kissed his lips, drinking him in with forceful tenderness even as he gave a harder thrust with his hips, pushing deeper into Jack.

That was enough; as quick as that, Jack gasped into Ianto’s mouth, coming hot and hard where his cock was trapped between their sweat-slicked skin. It wasn’t long before Ianto was coming too, muttering his name against his skin.

Afterwards they lay silently curled up together under the covers for a long time, as the fire burned down in the bedroom fireplace. Ianto lay with his head on Jack’s shoulder, hand curled up over Jack’s heart. His warm weight was a comfort to Jack, grounding him in the moment. Outside, he could hear the wailing of the wind around the rooftops of Torchwood House, the sounds of hammering rain and the burst and rumble of thunder, close and growing closer all the time. Now and then he saw a flicker of lightning illuminate the crack in the curtains, the sky white for a moment.

Jack hoped the children were alright; he remembered when he was that little, he’d always been afraid when storms rolled in over the sea. Storms were much more of a real danger there, of course; the peninsula was wont to flash-flood with the storm surge, or the lightning to take out their generator for their whole block. Or that other danger; when it was storming, you couldn’t see what was coming in over the ocean.

Still, he didn’t blame the twins if they couldn’t sleep; there was something about nights like this one that invited fear, cowering under the covers and waiting for it to pass. Jack frowned; he could feel the headache he’d had this morning building at his temple again. Static electricity maybe, or the change in pressure. His mother had always claimed she could sense storms coming like that.

“Jack.”

He blinked. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Not anymore” said Ianto, raising his head on Jack’s chest to look into his eyes. He was frowning, looking reluctant to carry on.

“What?” said Jack, some small alarm sounding in his head. Ianto looked troubled, and some part of Jack recoiled from the thought of asking him about it, without him understanding why. But Ianto took precedent, he knew; if something was bothering him, then Jack couldn’t ignore it. “What is it?”

“You know I’m not real, don’t you?”

Jack’s breath caught in his throat.

“You know none of this is real.”

“What. What are you talking about? ...Stop it.”

“ _Jack._ ”

He couldn’t help it; he looked up at Ianto, who had raised himself up above him on his elbows, and was looking immeasurably sad. “I know I wasn’t always honest with you. But near the end, I tried to always, always tell you everything.”

“Stop it!” his voice was rising in pitch but Jack didn’t care; he couldn’t listen to Ianto’s words, not on this, because that would make it–

“Jack. You know what’s doing this, don’t you?”

* * *

_The very last thing he heard was a bizarre clicking sound, before he felt something scuttle up his body. It was up to his neck, on his face, and then–_

_And then, a brief, sharp pain in his temple, and all went black._

* * *

Jack felt tears come to his eyes again, as he shook his head. “No!” he said, rolling away from Ianto, out of his side of the bed and fumbling for some clothes as the cooler air of the room hit him; the fire was only embers now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Ianto sighed, reaching for him. “Okay, well, how about this then.” He looked very sad, but resolved. “What are our children’s names?”

Jack had just finished pulling on his pyjama trousers and was reaching for a tshirt when he froze at Ianto’s words, still turned away from him. “Stop it” he growled.

“What are their names?” insisted Ianto. The worst part was that he didn’t sound angry; just very, very tired. “Jack.”

“Well _obviously_ , their names are...” he opened and closed his mouth, fingers twisting in the fabric of the tshirt in his hands, panicking slightly as he realised he couldn’t remember. “Their names are...”

“Do you remember the day they were born?” said Ianto.

“Of course!” snapped Jack, irritable. “Of course I do!”

“Tell me about it?”

“Well, I was… you were...” he frowned. “Oh, god.” He turned back to Ianto, tears in his eyes; his hands went slack and he dropped the tshirt on the floor, suddenly terrified. “ _Why can’t I remember?!?_ ”

Ianto sighed. “Because you never knew, Jack. This isn’t real.”

“Stop it!” shouted Jack. “Our children are _real_ , Ianto! You’re real! This...” he gestured all around. “ _This_ is real.”

Ianto merely stared at him from the bed, still with that weary-sad look in his eyes. It made him look young, Jack thought. But then again, Ianto was young.

...Too young, now Jack thought about it a little more. Mid-twenties, surely. But then, if the children were six (...or maybe seven? He should know, Jack thought with dismay) then that didn’t make sense, because Ianto had been twenty-six when–

Jack let out his breath, as thunder rolled outside the window, very loud and closer than ever. Lightning flashed through the window a mere split second later, illuminating Ianto’s face from the side in harsh white.

Something tugged in Jack’s mind, and at the same time there was a small singing pain, just at the side of his head.

He turned tail and ran for the bedroom door, slamming it open and running out into the corridor; Ianto didn’t follow. Jack pulled up short as saw the window looking out over the courtyard, illuminated by another brilliant flash of lightning.

Written in the condensation on the glass were the words:

_**JACK** _

_**YOU ARE DYING!!!** _

Jack stared at the words, blurred by his tears as a little drop of water ran down the pane from the letters. Again he went to the window, looking down over the courtyard; there was the tree again, dark against the paving stones. It wasn’t raining, he noticed; there was only the wind, buffeting the tree this way and that. As he watched he realised he could see the ravens from earlier, except there were so many more of them now; a whole flock flying in a great rotating ring with the tree at its centre, like a little storm of its own.

As the lightning flashed again they let out a great, collective screech, scattering into the air and out of their pattern in an explosive cloud. Jack couldn’t help but flinch as one of them flew directly at the window pane, heading straight for the glass; he was just able to get a glimpse of its eyes, an odd pale blue against its dark feathers, before it had struck the metal mullion between the panes with an enraged shriek, falling to spiral broken to the ground out of sight below.

Jack turned, running down the corridor to the children’s room; suddenly, he knew he had to check on them.

But, he realised then, he didn’t know where the children’s room was. Why didn’t he know? He definitely remembered putting them to bed earlier, with Ianto…

...Or did he? He remembered he’d had the idea they had put them to bed, but now he thought about it, the details were slipping like sand through his closed fist.

He ran around the corner in desperation; he wanted to shout his children’s names but he didn’t remember them, so all he could do was run from one room to another, flinging open doors and looking inside. But all of them were empty and cold, furniture covered in dust sheets and a dead silence hanging low over everything, except for the constant roll and rumble of the storm outside.

Finally he reached the corridor where he’d started again; he sighed with relief as he saw a sliver of light under the door of his and Ianto’s bedroom, which was ajar. He walked towards it in determination, but his feet hit something lying on the carpet in the middle of the corridor, nearly tripping him. He leaned down, frowning, to pick it up and hold it to the light from the door.

Jack nearly dropped it again as he realised it was the book from the library. But instead – almost against his will – he found himself opening the cover.

This time the title page was different again. It said,

_**KANTROFARRI** _

_**A handy guide to the dream crab currently feeding on your brain!** _   
  


Jack dropped the book to the ground. No, _no no no_ …

“Jack.”

The door opened, and there was Ianto. Jack couldn’t help himself; he pulled Ianto into his arms, burying his face in his shoulder. He certainly _felt_ real; at the very least he didn’t melt away to nothing under Jack’s touch.

He let Ianto lead him by the hand into the bedroom, sit him down on the edge of their bed and thumb away his tears. For a moment they were silent as Ianto regarded him solicitously. “The thing is… I’m dead, Jack” Ianto said at last, very gently. “You know that, don’t you?”

“No you’re not!” he forced a laugh. “You’re right here, with me.”

“No. I died, in Thames House in September two-thousand and nine. I’m dead, Jack.”

Jack swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. He frowned up at Ianto. “That’s… don’t say that.”

“I’m not real, Jack.”

“Stop it. _Not_ funny.”

“None of this is real. Not me, not this house, not our children...”

“Don’t _say_ that!”

“It’s true.” Ianto looked immeasurably sad, as he stared down at Jack in the dim light, caressing his face. “And I know you know it too.” He looked around sadly. “I’m sorry. I know you wanted this. But that’s just it, isn’t it? You _wanted_ this. You dreamed of it.”

Jack could feel tears starting in his eyes, blurring Ianto’s face as the thunder rolled outside the window. “Why are you telling me this?”

“There’s a creature feeding on you, Jack. But you know that; you let it feed on you yourself. You’ve read about how it slowly dissolves its victims' brains, and in the meantime it gives them whatever dream they want, to keep them distracted and happy. I’m an image created by your dying brain, Jack. I’m your own instinctive attempt to warn yourself, to keep yourself alive.”

“I can’t die!”

“You can’t _stay_ dead. You _can_ die though, over and over and over again. When you die, it just keeps feeding on you when you come back again.”

“Then why not just stay here?” said Jack, wild-eyed and desperate now. “I could stay as long as I want. It’s not like it can kill me.”

Ianto laid his hand on Jack’s cheek. “Because you’re hurting. It may not feel like it now, but you are.”

“How do you know?” even to his own ears, it sounded plaintive and childish.

“Because I’m part of you.”

“...So, you’re the part of me that wants me to live? ...Why would you take his face?”

“Because you wanted to see Ianto Jones. And anyway, you said it yourself: technically, I’m the part of you that wants you to live, wants you to avoid pain. Who else’s face would I take?”

Jack let out his breath, clutching onto Ianto’s arm, feeling the solidity of warm skin and bone and muscle under his hand. “No. No, no no. This is too real. _You’re_ real.”

“You’ve been here so long” said Ianto. “It’s no surprise it _feels_ real.”

“Ianto...”

“I’m not Ianto” Ianto reminded him with a gentleness that broke his heart, clasping Jack’s hand apologetically. “Not really.”

Jack took his face in his hands roughly, staring into those familiar, much-loved blue eyes. “You _are_ ” he growled. Even to his own ears, it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.

Ianto smiled very gently, raising his hand to touch Jack’s temple with the tips of his fingers. “That pain, just there. Like brain-freeze when you eat ice cream. That’s where it’s feeding on your brain.”

“...I don’t get brain-freeze when I eat ice cream.”

“I do. You know that about me, Jack.”

“Yeah...”

“This image is quite detailed.” He caressed the spot on Jack’s temple very gently, almost apologetic. “You’ve been like this… a long time.”

* * *

_Years passed in the forest; the seasons changed, and young trees grew tall and old and died, withering and rotting into the soil to make way for new growth. The stones – yes, gravestones, because this had been a graveyard once, a thousand years or more ago – were disappearing into the ground, forest mulch gathering around them, pushed and shifted by the rain that wore away at the surfaces of the forgotten stones. One day, they wouldn’t be visible at all as the ground level rose._

_There was only one thing that did not change, and that was the man lying on the forest floor._ _He just lay the_ _re_ _, with the strange creature fixed over his face, occasionally twitching and seizing in his sleep and then going still for a while, before doing it all over again. As the years passed, his clothes started to rot away, decomposing off him into the forest floor amongst the leaf-mould until he was left wearing only mildewed rags. But he seemed to be untouched by it, limbs shining pale in the green-tinged light under the deepening forest canopy. Mushrooms grew from the ground sheltered in the crook of his elbow, and for a few months a family of squirrels stored their cache of winter food in the pocket of his_ _shirt_ _before that rotted away too._

_Sometimes, a fox or an inquisitive bird would take a bite of him, finding him a fresh source of warm, unrotten flesh. But not for long; the thing on his face drove them away, hissing to keep its territorial hold over its prey. There was something about it that made the animals of the forest give it a wide berth._

_And on and on it held him in its grip, the man lying on the forest floor, the only undying thing._

_Or_ _perhaps_ _not quite; th_ _is_ _forest was full of graves, after all, and had been_ _since_ _before it was a forest at all._ _Back then it had been part of a large city, and had been well-tended and neatly kept before civilisation had forgotten it and the wildness had taken over once more after millen_ _n_ _ia._

_So no, he was not the only undying thing in the forest; the dead who are already in their graves and rotted to bones can’t die any more, after all. He had chosen this grave in particular; deep below the earth lay the bones of the man he’d once loved, a long, long time ago._

_The ground level had risen over time, so more than six feet separated them now. But on the scale of the planet, of the universe through which it spun, it was such a small distance that parted them really, a thin skin of cold soil clinging to the earth’s surface._

* * *

“I’m sorry” said Ianto, and he really did look apologetic. “But you can’t stay here.”

“Why?” sobbed Jack. “Why do I have to go back?”

“Because it’s killing you!”

“I can’t die. Not permanently, anyway.”

“It’s dissolving your brain! It’s causing you pain!”

“I can’t feel it. Not like this… not when I’m with you! With our children!”

“It isn’t real.”

“What if I don’t care? ...I could stay here forever, and what difference would it make?”

Ianto looked heartbroken. “The world needs you, Jack. You can’t sleep your life away. You need to carry on.”

Jack’s tears spilled from his eyes, blurring his vision; he wiped them away, determined to see Ianto for as long as possible. “But… but I love you…”

Ianto touched his face, kissing his lips very gently. “I know. I’m sorry.”

And the world started to fade and crumple at the edges. “Ianto!” Jack cried out, reaching for him desperately. “Ianto, please, don’t leave me… not again...”

Ianto’s face was fading, but Jack could still see tears on his face. “It wasn’t real, Jack.”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“It does! You have to live! You shouldn’t be like this, Jack.”

“...But! But I love you, Ianto! I never got to say it, but I love you… I love you so much, I don’t want to go back, I–”

“And I love you too. Now... time to wake up.”


	2. Chapter 2

_“And I love you too. Now... time to wake up.”_

Jack gasped awake, sitting up abruptly at his desk wild-eyed and panicked. After a moment of clinging to the edge of the desk, riding out a dizzying wave of nausea, reality began to settle around him once more. He blinked a few times, raising his hands to rub his eyes.

Of course; his office, the Torchwood Hub. He glanced down and saw a stack of half-finished paperwork on the desk in front of him, a stack of forms to sign and a report with a neat green Post-it note in Ianto’s handwriting. He let out his breath, eyes skimming over the dates on the forms. June two-thousand and nine. Of course. Of course, of course. He took deep breaths, steadying himself. He hadn’t had a dream like that in a long while. He’d had nightmares, yes, but none quite so elaborate or frightening.

Still, the details were fading, quicker than he could grasp them back. Not that he wanted to. He vaguely remembered the dream had been something to do with Ianto, something to do with losing him, but that wasn’t anything new; lately, after Tosh and Owen, his worst dreams had often been about losing Ianto, or Gwen.

Still, he hadn’t lost them yet, he knew. As the details of the dream faded away, the panic of it was ebbing too. To steady himself, Jack peered down at the papers on the desk, eyes skimming over the forms before settling on the report Ianto had put on his desk. Something about an alien species; _Kantrofarri_. The Post-it note Ianto had stuck to the front of it just said _FYI_.

Jack frowned, the name tugging something in his memory… perhaps an old case? He didn’t remember if it was something one of the others had been working on, but then he had been distracted recently.

Well, he thought, going to find Ianto and ask him about it was at least a decent excuse for a break from paperwork; if he’d fallen asleep at his desk he could also claim he was suffering from caffeine withdrawal. Not that that was untrue, thought Jack with a grimace, rubbing at the slight headache that was starting on one side.

In a better mood already at the prospect of coffee and Ianto, Jack put his hands on his desk, getting to his feet and walking out of the office into the main space of the Hub.

* * *

_The archivist read the note Jack had pushed across the table to her, one eyebrow rising a fraction before she pushed it back across to him. “I’m sorry, Captain Harkness. We can’t grant your request at this time.”_

“ _Aw, c’mon” said Jack, not bothering to keep the touch of coldness from his voice; once, he might have enjoyed this, might have had made a game of the persuasion. But these days, he was just so tired. “You people still owe me.”_

“ _With respect, Torchwood doesn’t owe you anything Captain” said the archivist, with a slight impatient twist of her lips. “You aren’t even employed by Torchwood anymore. But if you don’t think your years of service – and your losses in the line of duty – have been fairly compensated, then take it up with Human Resources.”_

“ _I don’t want money.” He pushed the note back towards her pointedly. In the corner of the room, the archivist’s young assistant lowered her eyes tactfully, pushing herself as far back into the corner as she could and looking uncomfortable._

“ _That may well be, but it’s not my job to dole out favours to former employees” she said. “And even if it were… I am an archivist, Captain. You may not understand what exactly that entails, but my job is specifically to maintain and preserve the contents of the Torchwood Archive. And that includes keeping the outside world safe from some of the Archive’s contents._ This _...” she pushed the note back towards him, “...is a prime example of the sort of thing I mean. If this particular specimen got loose–”_

“ _It won’t” growled Jack._

“ _..._ If _this creature got loose” she continued pointedly, “what do you imagine would happen, hmm?”_

“ _It_ won’t _” said Jack again._

_The archivist gave him an impatient, thin-lipped smile. “You’ll have to forgive me when I say your record doesn’t do much to support your claim to be able to safeguard dangerous specimens like this properly. The bomb blast that destroyed the greater part of the Torchwood Three archives, one of the most significant losses of data in the Institute’s history, happened under your term of leadership, did it not?”_

_Jack just ground his teeth, reining in his anger only with great effort. In the corner, the assistant winced, making a bad attempt to pretend to do some tidying while clearly listening to every word._

“ _As well as that” she continued, apparently heedlessly, “according to the records, when your head archivist was killed in the line of duty in the year two-thousand and nine, you made no move to fill in the position again. So–”_

 _She didn’t get any further before Jack had thrown a punch across the desk, hitting her squarely in the jaw._ _Her assistant shrank back into the corner and let out a little cry of alarm. The archivist_ _recovered quickly though, slamming her hand on the panic button beneath her desk and pulling a sleek plasma blaster on him, all in one fluid motion. Jack hissed back at her, drawing his own gun, teeth bared with blind fury, as several guards ran into the room and grasped his arms._

“ _I’m sorry, Captain Harkness” said the archivist, rearranging herself neatly again and regarding him with chilly disdain. “You’re not helping your case.”_

* * *

As soon as Jack rounded the corner into the main space of the Hub he saw Gwen, packing up her things at her desk with her back to him. He bounded up to her, giving her a big hug around the middle. “Gwen Cooper!”

She made a noise of protest. “Jack! I was just about to head home, Rhys is making pasta bake. What is it?”

“Can’t I say hello? I missed you!”

She gave him an odd look. “Not as if you were on Mars… you were just doing paperwork in your office. Are you even done, or are you just procrastinating?”

“You sound like Ianto.”

“Well, maybe Ianto’s got a point.”

Jack pouted, making an _okay I’ll give you that_ face. “Listen Gwen, speaking of Ianto… have you seen him today?”

“Erm, yes? He brought us coffee in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Oh… yeah. Uh, I meant where is he now?”

She gave him a strange look. “Maybe the conference room? Tourist office? The archives? I dunno, I assumed he was with you.”

“Right, right” said Jack, giving her a big grin and squeezing her arm. “Thanks Gwen. Have a nice night. Give Rhys my love.”

She frowned. “...Jack, what…?”

“Gotta go. Gotta uh… ask Ianto something. Very important.”

Gwen’s face cleared, and she rolled her eyes fondly. “Just don’t blame me if he cuffs you to that desk and makes you finish off your paperwork first.”

Jack grinned. “I can work with that.”

She laughed. “Goodnight, Jack. Don’t keep Ianto up too late.”

“Sleep well yourself, Gwen.”

* * *

 _Jack_ _tipp_ _ed his head back against the_ _concrete_ _wall of the holding cell_ _with a deep, exhausted sigh. He’d been careless, punching the archivist, but in that sudden flash of white-hot anger he hadn’t been thinking straight. Now he was paying for it; not because he was imprisoned – they’d let him out eventually with a stern telling off, Torchwood knew well enough you couldn’t easily keep him confined, nor did they have much_ _reason_ _to do so – but because they’d be on red alert now, making it much harder for him to enact his backup plan to steal the specimen from the archives_ _himself_ _._

 _H_ _e knocked the back of his head lightly against the concrete, trying to breath_ _e_ _evenly; the anger from before was still there, held at a low simmer. But mostly, it was frustration at himself. Because nothing the archivist had said was untrue; somewhere_ _far down_ _amongst all the other heavy weights on his heart, Jack had always regretted not doing more to safeguard Ianto’s life’s work in the archives_ _at the very least_ _, even if he couldn’t save Ianto himself._

 _But still. It_ _didn’t change what he was here to do. He’d made it harder for himself, but he was still determined to go through with this. All he had to do was figure out_ _–_

 _As_ _he was thinking this there was a soft beeping at the door, which slid open to reveal a slight figure standing there, silhouetted against the brighter light of the corridor. Jack squinted as the figure walked inside his cell, recognising them a mere moment later as the archivist’s assistant._

 _Instantly he was frowning, on guard. “_ _To what do I owe the_ _–_ _”_

“ _Shhh!” she hissed,_ _interrupting him_ _. She was carrying a bulky black rucksack and looking extremely apprehensive. “_ _Hurry up, we don’t have much time before they find out my boss’s access key’s been stolen.”_

 _Jack blinked. “What_ _–_ _”_

“ _Short version: I got what you wanted.” She gestured to the rucksack on her back, and Jack’s eyes widened. She_ _pointed_ _to the cell door. “Coming?”_

_Jack didn’t waste a moment before following her out into the corridor._

* * *

The first place Jack tried was the conference room as Gwen had suggested, but Ianto wasn’t there. Neither was he in the greenhouse, or the med-bay, or any of the store-rooms on the main level of the Hub. Still, Jack checked every one carefully, smiling a little bit; these storage rooms were more like glorified cupboards, but they did hold some rather pleasant memories for him. Mostly involving Ianto and a distinct lack of clothes. Still, none of the rooms had Ianto in them right now, so Jack turned back around the corner, passing his office and making for the stairs. He was thinking of going to check the archives next, then the tourist office.

That was when he paused and listened; something was different.

Something was _wrong._

* * *

 _When they’d picked their way outside in silence – with a few heart-stopping near-misses – she swung the rucksack off her back and passed it to Jack. “One living specimen of the species Kantrofarri, colloquially known as dream crabs._ _I suppose I don’t need to tell you not to drop the jar._ _”_

 _Jack took the bag,_ _peering inside at the top of a cylindrical glass holding container and then_ _blinking back at her. She was younger than he’d thought, on closer inspection. Early twenties at most; Torchwood employees still skewed young these days apparently, if only because many of them didn’t make it out of their twenties. Maybe that would be a constant for as long as the Institute existed. Still, she had that other feature shared by so many Torchwood employees he’d known over the years; she acted older than her age, carrying the weight of things seen that couldn’t be unseen._

“ _Thank you” said Jack, and meant it. Then he frowned. “...Why are you helping me?”_

“ _I’m an archivist._ _I looked you up._ _” She met his eye. “My boss thinks you’re dangerous, but I...” she shrugged. “I read about you, and your team back in the early twenty-first century._ _Torchwood a_ _gents Harper and Sato and Cooper and Jones, and_ _their_ _Captain Harkness. ..._ _I_ _think… I think you’ve earned the right to_ _this_ _, if that’s what you want.”_

_He frowned, sensing there was more to the story. “And?”_

_She gave him a smile, half sad, half determined, as though challenging him to argue further. “And I’m Torchwood” she said stiffly. “I may not be thousands of years old, but I know what it’s like to lose people._ _And to want nothing more than to see them again._ _”_

 _So young; so young, and she’s already been damaged by this job, he thought._ _He opened his mouth and closed it again. “Thank you” he said, unable t_ _o think of anything else. His voice cracked a little._ _“..._ Thank you _.”_

 _She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Go on. Before someone sees yo_ _u._ _”_

“ _Wait. I’ve got one more favour to ask.” He took off his coat, folding it up reverently into a bundle and handing it over with only a moment’s hesitation. “Will you keep this for me? I might be… a while. I want it kept safe.”_

_She smiled, taking the coat. “Yes, I expect I can manage that.”_

* * *

The main space of the Hub was empty now, the silence ringing too loud in Jack’s ears. “Gwen?” He called, even though he knew she’d already gone home. “...Ianto?”

No response. He frowned, looking around; usually it wouldn’t be quite this silent, the whir and hum of fans and coolant systems, the beeping of some small alert or other, or the occasional rattle of the Hub’s convoluted pipework and ventilation systems a constant, familiar background to Jack. It was too quiet. Dark too, he realised; half the lights were off.

He walked across the darkened space, feet loud against the metal grilles.

That was when he spotted something lying on the ground, a little way in front of him.

Jack leaned down to pick up the object, frowning as he turned it over in his hands. It was a single dark feather. He peered upwards, wondering where it could possibly have come from. Just as he did he saw another feather, fluttering down from up above.

He frowned. In the dim light it was hard to see much, but it seemed to be coming from Myfanwy’s roost. Maybe she’s been outside and caught a bird? Something shifted in him though, some sense of unease; for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Jack didn’t think that was it.

Without knowing quite why, he went up the stairs, beginning to climb the ladder to Myfanwy’s roost. He didn’t often come up here; it was mostly Ianto who fed and looked after her these days.

Still, Jack squinted into the shadowed nest, wishing he’d brought a torch with him. Why was it so dark? He’d have to ask Ianto about the lights when he found him again. Still, there was the dull, cold glow of an emergency light on the other side of Myfanwy’s nest. Jack squinted in its dim illumination, watching as the dark shape of the sleeping pteranodon shifted and chittered a little in her sleep. But she sounded different, he suddenly realised; moved differently too. Cautiously, he stepped forward, trying to get a better look into her roost, but he couldn’t see much through the railings surrounding her. He opened the flap on his vortex manipulator, fiddling with the settings to try to control the emergency lights, but even that was hard, hurting his eyes to look at the illuminated display against the dark.

And then there was a beep from his wrist, and the lights flickered on.

As soon as they did, Jack saw enough to see that something was deeply, profoundly wrong.

He just had time to see pale fluorescent light – too bright after the darkness – strike a roiling mass of something dark, where Myfanwy should have been. Then there was a vast shuffling and shrieking and beating of wings, and the shrieking of a thousand dry caws as the mass burst apart into an explosion of black wings, a flock of ravens exploding outwards and filling the air. Instinctively, Jack’s hands came up to cover his face as they flew against him, shrieking, wings beating against his body. He was aware of himself crying out, of dropping to his knees on the metal grating as the storm of birds flew around him for what felt like an hour at least, scattering off into the Hub’s upper levels and shrieking out an echoing din.

Or perhaps only a few minutes. Either way, after that it was quiet again, Jack leaning hunched against the metal railings with his arms up over his head. After a moment he looked up, breathing hard, unsettled as the shock of it ebbed away. He peered around the Hub; the birds were nowhere to be seen, though the floor was scattered with sleek feathers like an inky snowfall, covering the desks and the floor below, floating in a thick layer on the surface of the tide pool.

Jack didn’t wait a moment longer; dropping the feather still clasped in his hand, he turned and fled back down the stairs to the archives.

* * *

_It was easy for Jack to find the place; it had become overgrown since he’d last been here, the graveyard long abandoned as it had filled up and as borders of cities and settlements had shifted over the centuries. But he knew where to go; the coordinates were saved on his vortex manipulator, though he knew them by heart anyway._

_The light was already beginning to fade as he stood at the sparser edge of the forest, the rucksack with its precious cargo heavy against his back. He peered up at the trees for a moment, silhouetted against the flat blue of a darkening, cloudy sky. As he looked, several birds cried out high above_ _and_ _out of sight, a few taking wing and spiraling into the air._

_Taking a breath, Jack took a step forward beneath the trees._

* * *

Down here in the archives at least, everything was blessedly, reassuringly normal. Jack let out his breath as he leaned the side of his head against the cool plastered concrete beside the door, watching Ianto sorting through the filing cabinet behind his desk.

Down here, it was easier to convince himself it hadn’t been real, the thought of black feathers covering the floor slipping out of his awareness with the same ease as he ignored the pain at his temple. Maybe he really wasn’t getting enough sleep; he had fallen asleep at his desk today after all, and that almost never happened.

Besides, Ianto was in front of him, and that was far more interesting.

Ianto was turned away from him, but for a moment Jack was content to just watch as he let his heart rate return to normal, breathing evening out at just the sight of him.

“Jack” said Ianto without looking up. “I know you’re there.”

Jack came into the room, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, unable to keep the smile off his face. “Damn, you got me.”

Ianto raised his head, peering over this shoulder at Jack. “I assume since you’ve been driven to watching me file, you’re completely done with those forms I put on your desk?”

“Maybe I just have very specific tastes” said Jack. He grinned, as Ianto rolled his eyes and then visibly relented; he took this as the sign to go over to his desk and come around beside Ianto’s chair, putting his hand on his face.

Ianto had stood up, leaning his hip against the desk and regarding Jack with a small frown as he let him caress his cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“...Who said there was anything wrong?”

Ianto merely raised his most sceptical eyebrow.

“I… wanted to see you” Jack said, trying hard to keep his voice even.

“Well” said Ianto, with a small smile. “I’m right here.”

Jack nodded. “It’s just, I had this dream” he blurted out, all at once. “...I dreamed you’d died.” There had been a lot more to the dream too, he thought, but that was the detail that stood out. Vast and too painful to bear, sticking out into his waking memory from the general sense of it.

A small frown line crinkled Ianto’s brow. “I’m right here” he told Jack again, reaching between them and taking Jack’s other hand, giving his fingers a squeeze.

Jack took him in his arms, wrapping him loosely in an embrace and feeling the warmth of him in his arms. “I know. I just needed...”

Ianto seemed to understand exactly what he meant; his hands came up around Jack’s back and held him close, pressing his face to Jack’s cheek. “I’m here” he mumbled against Jack’s skin. Jack had closed his eyes, feeling the warmth and solidity of Ianto, arms wrapped around him. They swayed gently on the spot, as though to some non-existent music; Jack smiled as he remembered them dancing at Gwen’s wedding. And all the other times, long nights when Jack had put on a record on the old gramophone in his office and they hadn’t talked, simply danced sleepily together in the peace of the Hub after hours.

He felt himself relaxing into the embrace, and was beginning to think about asking Ianto to come back upstairs with him and maybe they could go to bed, without that being a euphemism for anything for once. Or perhaps only a little. Either way, his nap earlier had only made him feel more tired rather than less, and tonight he only wanted to fall asleep with Ianto held securely in his arms; anything else would be a pleasant extra.

And then he felt the pain at the side of his head pulse for a second. He winced as at the same moment he heard a faint, high ringing in his ears like feedback from a bad microphone, taking him by surprise and making him draw in his breath, eyes snapping open with a start.

Ianto drew away from him, frowning as he scrutinised Jack’s face. “Jack. What–”

But his words faded in Jack’s ears, as he stared in horror at the wall across from him. A word was painted across the concrete, in black paint as thick as tar that seemed to have been daubed across it in clumsy desperation.

_**DYING** _

Jack blinked, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them wide again. But far from having disappeared, the word was repeated, overlapping itself in a chaotic palimpsest daubed across the walls.

_**DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING** _

“–Jack? _Jack!_ ”

Jack blinked, gasping as Ianto calling his name permeated his awareness. “Jack, can you hear me?!?”

“Can you see it?” he demanded, looking back at the walls; it was everywhere now, the paint dripping thick and glistening off everything, so it almost looked like the scene was melting around him.

But Ianto’s eyes were wide and scared as he glanced around and shook his head. “See… see what, Jack?”

Jack merely opened his mouth and closed it again, hardly trusting himself to reply for a moment. “No...” he gasped. “Not again...”

“Again?” said Ianto, “what do you mean _again_? Jack?”

“No, I lost you last time” he said, not knowing where the words were coming from even as they spilled from his mouth. But as soon as he said them memories came, memories of that dream.

 _...That dream_.

_Dreaming._

_Dying…_

_Then that meant, all this..._

Even as he had the thought, the world began to dissolve and break apart, faster and faster. And _no, no no no_ , he had to hold this dream together like he hadn’t been able to before, because if he didn’t then Ianto would be–

“Jack!” gasped Ianto, and it was only then that Jack realised how tightly he was clutching Ianto’s arms, tight enough that his fingers must be leaving welts. “What is it? What’s wrong? For god’s sake, let me help you!”

Jack breathed out, paralysed with terror as he stared around.

_**DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING DYING** _

“You can’t see it!” gasped Jack, mind racing as more memories came rushing back. “That… that means… that means it’s not _me_ , you’re not part of my mind trying to keep me alive… it’s different than before, it has to be...”

“What are you talking about?” yelled Ianto, loud enough and close enough to hurt his ears; Ianto was holding on to his arms almost as hard as Jack was holding him now.

“Before, you were the part of me that wanted me to live! You sent me back!”

“Of bloody course I want you to live!”

“No! Stop, don’t say that...”

“...You’re scaring me, Jack.”

“It’s different this time!” shouted Jack, as though by saying it he could make it true; the walls ran with paint now – and was it really paint? Jack didn’t want to think about what else it might be – words mingling and running into one another in a thick black sludge, dripping down the walls like half-melted tar. “It’s different, it’s not like before! I can still stay!”

Ianto’s face was shiny with tears, and Jack realised, in some part of his mind, that his own was too. “Jack!” said Ianto. “You’re… you’re fading...”

“ _No_ ” he growled, desperate and determined; he reached for Ianto, seizing him in a rough and burning kiss; all teeth and desperation and salty tears, and Jack could taste the iron tang of a mouthful of blood where he’d bitten Ianto’s lip with the force of it. Or maybe it was his blood, or both. He didn’t care, anything to stay alive, blood meant life, and life meant...

“Jack!” said Ianto as Jack drew back to let him breathe. “Where are you, Jack? You’re fading!”

Sure enough, the world had darkened even more around him, beginning to buckle and dissolve like plastic held to a flame, curling away to nothing. _No, no no no_ … not like this, not again. “ _Ianto!_ Ianto, no, please. I don’t want to go back. I love you! Ianto, please, I love you, I...”

But it was no good; even as he reached for Ianto, the image of him was fading; he was speaking words, Jack could see his mouth moving, eyes glimmering in the last of the fading light through his own tear-blurred vision. He didn’t understand; what had he done? What had woken him? This wasn’t supposed to happen, he was supposed to still be asleep. This wasn’t Ianto that had done this, and it certainly wasn’t him, so, what–

Jack gasped and raised his head, only to find it hit something about a few inches above. He frowned; there was something covering his face, a thick layer that felt like caked earth. Not that he could feel much. He could barely move, he realised a moment later. That was when a flicker of fear started to set in; it was almost completely dark, and very cold, and _he couldn’t move_. He found his mind going back to being imprisoned in concrete, but this time there would be no one to free him, no one to break him out and let him see light again. No familiar, much-loved face to greet him.

But no, he realised, gaining back a little rationality. No, he was not encased, he was starting to be able to breathe, and the smell of forest loam and evergreen needles was all around him. He blinked, raising his head and finding it hitting something solid again; as it did, whatever was coating his face began to flake and disintegrate away, sloughing off in chunks.

As soon as it was gone there was light, dim and grey-green, filtering down through the canopy. He craned his head to the side, seeing a dark pile of something just at the edge of his line of vision.

A heap of ashy debris, he realised, that had been the creature that had done this to him.

 _Dying_.

It hadn’t been his own mind sending those messages then. It had been the creature itself, in its death throes.

He must have been here so long, let it feed off him for so many aeons as he died and came back to life over and over, that in the end it had simply died of old age. Jack had simply outlived it, as he did everything else.

He let out his breath at the realisation, letting his neck go slack against whatever was holding him as he stared up at the small section of the dappled canopy he could see, tears tracking down his face. That was it then; no more dreaming. No more Ianto, except the memories he held inside his head. Not that the dreams had been anything else but his own memories. But at least they’d _felt_ real.

Now the dream crab was only dust, and the forest had grown up all around, and all he had left were memories and the mossy, time-weathered gravestone he’d laid himself down by.

Suddenly he needed to see it again; needed desperately to see the familiar letters on the ancient stone, to make sure they were still legible there despite the grinding onwards march of centuries.

But, he realised once more, he still couldn’t move.

Jack struggled against whatever was binding him, feeling his head strike against the thick spar of wood – he now realised – right above him.

Or… no. Not a spar of wood; a root. There was another across his chest, several more tangled through his legs, one binding down his right arm at a painful angle.

He was completely tangled in them; the tree’s roots must have grown around him while he slept. He struggled and pulled for a while, before at last wincing with the sensation of his arm fracturing near the wrist, the snap and grate of bone setting his teeth on edge.

Still, it was the only way to get free; he winced as he felt his arm bend too far, sending a pain so acute through him that it made him gasp. At least that way he was feeling _something_ , he thought bitterly. This was immediately followed by a flush of shame; Ianto wouldn’t want him thinking like that.

Already though, Jack could feel his bones knitting back together, so he quickly wrenched his arm free of the tree roots while he still could. Then he repeated the same process with the other arm, and his right leg. Then felt a rib or two crack and the stabbing pain of a punctured lung, followed by the familiar shortness of breath, as he twisted his torso free from under the constricting root.

Once he’d freed himself, he just sat on the ground for a long, long time until he flesh and bones clicked back together, breathing returning slowly to normal. And then to deep, hitching sobs, as he stared at the tangle of roots that had enveloped him. A vast yew tree, ancient and dark-boughed, blotting out the light; he must have been there a thousand years or more for it to grown so knarled about him. He felt tears come again as he laid a hand on the roots, imagining if he’d lain there longer; one day, the branches would have closed over his head and he wouldn’t have been able to free himself at all, not until the whole forest rotted around him. Imprisoned under the ground by ancient roots.

Something tugged in his mind: a memory. Ianto, saving him from a concrete block. Ianto, holding him in his arms after Jack had been pulled from cold earth before, after Gray had buried him there.

He looked around, rubbing away the last of the slight pain lingering at his temple, ignoring the black debris from the creature that had been clinging to his face; Jack didn’t care about it anymore. For a heart-stopping second, he thought what he was looking for was gone, that it had been swallowed by the forest or worn away by the weather. But a moment later he saw it, stone grown entirely green with moss.

An ancient, weathered gravestone, one of many dotted through this clearing and all around. There, still just about visible, was the familiar inscription:

_**IANTO JONES** _

_**1983 – 2009** _

Jack let out his breath, laying his hand over the letters, tracing their shape. In his dream, as he’d slept away another millennium, Ianto had been so real, so alive, whether or not he’d just been stitched together from Jack’s memories and his body’s instinctive will to survive. But then that made sense; Jack had promised Ianto he’d remember, and he’d intended to keep that promise. He had, and he would. He always would.

He sighed; that Ianto, the one from his memories, had saved him in his way: saved him from being trapped by the roots of the tree, saved him from waking up to more suffering. He couldn’t imagine a more appropriate face for that part of him to wear.

_Who else’s face would I take?_

The memory of Ianto’s words – and no, it wasn’t really him, and yet at the same time it was – brought tears to his eyes anew. Pushing himself up on his knees – and his body was still recovering, still weak and stiff from a millennium of stasis – he shuffled over to the stone, gently stroking a hand over the mossy letters. He leaned forward and kissed the cold, damp stone, before pushing himself up onto his feet for the first time in aeons.

He looked down at himself, brushing himself off; he’d have to get new clothes, these ones were ancient and moulding away, falling apart at the seams with the damp of the forest floor. But at least he hadn’t brought his coat with him – that same coat, the same one Ianto had got him. He’d go get it back, he decided; it would be sealed carefully away in some Torchwood vault, as safe against the long march of time as it would be anywhere.

It would be good to get back into the world, part of him thought. Suddenly he wanted to feel the sunlight on his face again. Whatever else he was, Jack had been raised in the light, and being without it for so long sat wrong even now.

But undeniably, this place had a hold on him. He paused for just a moment more, fingers lingering on the top of the stone, before he turned on his heel and began to walk.

And as he did, a wind ruffled the dark branches of the ancient yew. At the same moment there came a dry, croaking caw, and two ravens, feathers of oil-slick ink with pale blue eyes, took flight against the cloudy sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Torchwood Fan Fests Halloween Fest week 3 prompt "creatures, witches & cryptids", specifically creatures.
> 
> ...Also, yes that's right, this fic is based on the plot Last Christmas! I have somewhat mixed feelings about that episode and the way it goes and some of the writing (of that period of Doctor Who in general actually). However I really really am into the dream scenes with Clara and Danny in Last Christmas as an exploration of memory and grief, and I really just wanted to do a similar thing with Jack (and Ianto) since the fact that Jack can't die makes the dream crabs stuff a whole different upsetting kettle of horrifying fish. Also I think it's appropriate for Halloween!
> 
> The title is from the folk song/translation of a 17th century Irish poem _I Am Stretched on your Grave_ ; I love [Kate Rusby's version of it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtPDPC8mJGU), which I think is very very appropriate to the imagery and themes of this story, and definitely helped inspire it.
> 
> Drop me a comment and/or find me on tumblr @ultraviolet-eucatastrophe!!


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